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Explorer

Past stories Living off-the-grid New Brunswick's Saint John River Ontario's Bruce Trail Canadian Ski Marathon Elk Island National Park Rallying for rallysport Montreal - Circus city Beluga Bytes Dawson - a musical adventure Bald Eagle Confederation Trail Boning up on the badlands Ukkusiksalik National Park Geocaching Discover Cypress Hills Saint Joseph's Oratory A walk through Stanley Park Sudbury's science centre Acadia continues Toronto's underground world

Launching the game

The geocaching phenomenon began in May 2000, when the American government announced it would allow the public — not just the military — access to accurate signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. That means a person armed with a GPS receiver and a set of coordinates can locate any spot on the planet. Two days after the announcement, a stash outside Portland, Oregon, that had been listed on an Internet newsgroup was found by Mike Teague of Vancouver, Washington.

His personal website documented that find and various other caches GPS users were starting to hide. Teague handed over his site and duties to Jeremy Irish, a web developer from Seattle who saw great potential in the emerging game. Irish still runs www.geocaching.com, which now lists more than 130,000 caches in over 200 countries, including at least a few in every Canadian province and territory, from five sites in Nunavut to more than 2,500 in Ontario.